Author Archives: Emily

Smoothies for a Man

by

I usually go to the store alone, but when Camile was visiting last week we did a quick trip that was a family affair.  Adam apparently forgot what the plethora of packaged goodies looks like, especially because most of what I bring home each week is produce, and he was excited by something in every aisle. 

The frozen food is the last stop in our store, and the last thing Adam thrust at me was a package of Yoplait Blueberry Pomegranate Smoothie starter.  It’s possible that I smacked him and yelled that going to the store with him was like babysitting an ADHD riddled child; but that’s really beside the point.  When I reminded him that he doesn’t like blueberries or pomegranate he simply crowed “but it’s a new flavor!”  Ok, then.  We did not leave the store with the smoothie starter; we also left behind a thing of peanut butter cookies, a vegan-style Snickers bar, and Camile’s assurance that Adam was aware of her severe nut allergies.

Lo and behold, one of the first free coupons I received at BlogHer was for the Yoplait Smoothie products.  I carefully watch our food budget and I try to keep Adam healthy and happy, but only a monster says no when it’s free.  If Adam and I are ever in Nevada and the Pussycat Ranch is having a BOGO special it’s likely I’ll give him a baseball coach butt slap and a ‘go get ’em champ!’  When Adam found the package in our freezer he was excited but confused.  Thankfully he has a terrible memory, “Of course, I never say no to the man of the house.  No, I would never hit you…in public…with a bag of frozen peas.”

Wife of the year that I am, this morning it was time for smoothies –

*That’s my serving, Adam got a slightly bigger, much manlier, disposable Subway cup.

The instructions say to blend with 1cup of skim milk but I used half skim cow and half plain almond milk.  Each bag contains two servings, live and active cultures, and two full servings of fruit.  I like blueberries and pomegranates so I thought the flavor was good, just too sweet.  Normally I read the nutrition panel and ingredient list before purchasing, but free!

Oh.  Milkfat, sugar, fructose, corn starch.  I love that Yoplait is encouraging people to eat more fruit, but my smoothies only contain fruit, not filler.  And this wasn’t any quicker than assembling one of my normal smoothies.  If you are substituting this for a milkshake or have a serious portion control problem then this is the product for you; but otherwise I say skip it.

Now I’m off to find something with more than 120calories to finish off my breakfast.

Have you tried this or any brand of smoothie starters?  What is your favorite smoothie combination?

Tru Tortilla Chip Craving

by

I managed to hold off my snacking urge all afternoon, but we did decide to switch up our weekly meal plan and head to some take out!  Dinner is being repurposed for my lunch tomorrow and my restaurant leftovers are going toward the husband’s lunch so in the end it all works out.

We went with Moe’s, always a good choice.

I was in the mood for a quesadilla but instead I ordered something I was sure to have leftovers with; a rice bowl.  I topped my rice with black beans, chicken, mushrooms, peppers, onions, cheese, lettuce, jalopenos, black olives, medium salsa, corn salsa, and cilantro.

The flavor storm was great and as predicted my rice bowl ended up ginormous.  I ate about 1/3 and packed the rest up for Adam.

I probably should have stopped there but I got a side of queso dip so I also scarfed a sort of disgusting amount of free tortilla chips.

Soooooo full.

We are currently Netflixing the show “Tru Calling;” we are only 1 episode in but it seems pretty good!

What’s Up Doc?

by

Thank you for all your feedback on the giveaway.  I really do appreciate every comment I get here on my little corner of the internet ❤

While I worked on my to-do list I this morning I also worked my way through a big pile of baby carrots.

I know people say that baby carrots are just trumped up packaging of the big guys but I really do prefer them.  Babies seem much crunchier and sweeter to me.

At lunchtime I turned to the freezer.  We have a pretty tight food budget this year and I try to snatch up frozen meals on sale so I tend to have a random assortment.  Today I grabbed a Lobster Cheese Ravioli from Healthy Choice.

I ended up being pleasantly surprised by the quality. 

The ravioli were delicious, even a little better than the Buitoni variety we tried the other day.  I liked the generous portion of squash as well, my only complaint is that the marinara sauce was too watery.

Actually, I guess my other complaint is that I’m currently starving!  To be fair though, 260calories held me over for a while, it’s not necessarily the meal’s fault that I’m ready to chew off my own arm.  The husband is having hunger pains as well so as soon as I hit publish I’m off on a snack hunt.

Big girl carrots or baby carrots?  Or carats?

P.S. Opinions on the font size?

The Best Kind of Morning

by

Sooo, about that last giveaway … awkward!  Yeah, that was a bust.  No one commented before the giveaway closed, but would you mind commenting on that post now to let me know why that giveaway sucked so hard?  Any feedback would be appreciated.

Today I had the best kind of morning, I started my day off with a run with the husband!  We are trying to work out the schedule and logistics of being able to workout together before class this year.  I’m also trying to work on getting on a proper sleep schedule; I got in bed at 10pm last night and even though it took me half the night to fall asleep, when the alarm rang at 6:30 I got out of bed.

Cons of this morning’s run –

  • We went for 30minutes and I still had to take several walking breaks
  • We ran on a path around the nearby lake so I have no idea how far we went
  • I’m so pathetically out of shape that Adam barely gets a workout when he runs with me

Pros of this morning’s run –

  • I got out there before 7am and ran for 20minutes
  • We got to run near the lake and it was gorgeous
  • I’m looking forward to the journey back to fitness, even especially the hard work and pathetic stats in the meantime

While Adam was in the shower I got my stretch on, and after my shower I put on yoga pants again so I can continue to take stretch/strength breaks throughout the day.  I start classes in 10days so it’s important that I get myself back into good habits before then.

I also made sure to eat a refueling breakfast.  Also a creamy, dreamy, tropical breakfast.

I threw some Plain Fat Free Stonyfield, a large banana, a serving of Goya frozen soursop pulp, and some Naked Coconut Water into the blender and 2minutes later I had perfection. 

Soursop is my favorite fruit (it comes in even slightly ahead of coconut!) and I highly encourage you to try it if you ever get the chance.

I got some carbs into the mix as well with a serving of Kashi Strawberry Fields cereal with Silk Almond Milk.

Every food group minus veggies?  Check.

I have a pretty packed to do list today, but I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t most looking forward to setting up my new dayplanner –

“See” you for lunch!

What were a pro and con of your morning?

Raising the Bar, A Giveaway

by

Things may not be perfect here at Eating Chalk, but I recently raised the bar (for myself) by switching over to self-hosting.  And by switching back to a more fitting name; Eatventures, you’ll be missed!

I wanted to celebrate those big changes by hosting a little giveaway.  I raised the bar, now I want to send one of you some bars –

10 of my favorites to be exact (excluding any chocolate covered varieties because those just don’t ship well).

You have until Thursday, August 19th to enter.  Here’s how –

  1. CC me (emilyhwaxATgmail.com) on an e-mail in which you tell 2 people about the new Eating Chalk.  Leave a comment on this post to let me know you’ve done so.
  2. Link back to this giveaway on your blog.  Leave a comment on this post to let me know you’ve done so.
  3. Link back to this giveaway from Twitter.  Leave a comment to let me know you’ve done so.
  4. Link back to this giveaway from Facebook.  Leave a comment to let me know you’ve done so.

You can do all of the four if you’d like, just leave a separate comment for each entry.

P.S. Sorry for the missing post yesterday (and today), we’ve had a mini internet issue but I should be back tomorrow.

Dinner for Two

by

After our family time weekend it was great to spend the evening with the husband, just the two of us.  We even had a three course meal, Emily and Adam style.

First course, a big plate of green bean fries.

This is my favorite veggie to roast!  Tonight’s plate got a sprinkle of onion powder pre-oven that took it over the top.  My favorite are the crinkly ones, just like french fries!

Second course, shrimp and lobster ravioli with garlic butter sauce.

I’d love to have you think I was a good enough wife to have whipped this up on my own, but in reality it was a Buitoni sample I got to try via the Foodbuzz Tastemaker program.

This was from their Complete Meal for Two line.  The ravioli and garlic butter sauce cook in the time it takes to boil water so I didn’t have high expectations but I ended up being very impressed.  This was the quickest, easiest meal but it tasted restaurant quality.  The sauce was rich without being too heavy and I thought it was well seasoned.  The ravioli were stuffed full and I found huge meaty chunks of shrimp and lobster.  Plus, at 500calories a serving I found my portion to be very filling, probably from the 21grams of protein.  My only complaint with the dish is that it had 49%! of your daily sodium.  Adam and I both have good to low blood pressure so this is ok for an occasional indulgence for us, but be careful if you are watching your sodium levels.

Dessert.

Breyer’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough sandwiches.  I saw the box on sale today and just couldn’t resist.  I adore ice cream cookie sandwiches but I had a random allergic reaction to a Chipwich in college so I haven’t had one in years.  No reaction tonight, unless you count the exclamation of utter bliss!  For 160calories I was blown away at how generous the portion was.

The cookies were chewy but not at all soggy and the filling tasted like vanilla froyo.  The cookie dough pieces took it to a new level.  Full disclosure – I actually ate my dessert before dinner 😀

What was the last “fancy date meal” you prepared?  I feel like I tend to make “girl food,” but bacon mac and cheese is on the menu for tomorrow so we’ll see if I can’t make the husband swoon yet!

Icing or Cake

by

This post comes from back in Buffalo.  We made it (mostly) in one piece.  More on that later though.

I want to preface this post with recognition of the fact that the husband and I eat very differently than the rest of his family.  Our preferences, nutrition goals, and food values are all very different.  This means that when we are with his family I have to weigh being rude or being a bother with eating in a way that makes me feel happy and healthy.  I try to satisfy myself in a healthy way and also not to offend anyone.  I did my best to balance both of those goals this weekend.

When we went to the store Friday night my brother-in-law did warn me that I needed to buy breakfast so I was more than prepared for that.  I got to try a couple of new things 😀  – – – Side note; walking through the yogurt aisle in his grocery store practically gave me an aneurism because I was so jealous of the immense Greek yogurt variety.  – – –  Like Fage 2% with blueberry.

I was so excited for this but I ended up being a bit disappointed.  It wasn’t terrible, but the blueberries had a weird bitter taste.  The strawberry Fage has such a great balance of sweetness and tang but it just didn’t work here.

I had much more success with Oat Revolution instant oats, cinnamon roll flavor.

The texture was way more complex that regular instant oats, definite upgrade!

Adam and I drove around with his brother helping to pick up things for the party but we also found time to play on the swing set with our niece.

Excuse the closed eyes, swinging as high as I could was glorious but sunny.  We swung for an hour which ended up feeling like a bit of a workout.  We also worked on handstands and cartwheels.  Just throwing it out there – my fitness goal for the next 4months is to be able to do a proper handstand and cartwheel again.

Lunch.

I grabbed two small slices of pizza with ranch and a little serving of pasta salad.

Our niece had an iCarly birthday cake.  I requested a tiny corner piece.

It ended up being mostly icing, which was exactly what I wanted!

Saturday evening the grandparents babysat and we went on a movie date with Adam’s brother and his wife.  We saw The Expendables which was adequately funny.  There are so many movies coming out that I’m excited about.  I packed a Toffee Chocolate Power Bar as my movie snack.

When we got home I ate another two small slices of pizza for dinner but they somehow escaped the camera.

This morning I started my day with a Yoplait Plain Greek Yogurt with a grape honey stick.

Everyone was in a hurry to get on the road but we did make time to go to the in-laws’ favorite spot for breakfast.  It was a buffet but sadly most of the options were meat based.  I ended up putting together a pretty good plate.

Veggies, scrambled eggs, and a biscuit with honey.  And a second plate full of fresh fruit.

Why, oh why was 90% of the fruit bar canned in heavy syrup?  I would have loved peaches or strawberries.

I had one final coupon to use so we stopped at McDonalds at lunchtime.  My coupon was for a premium salad so I got a Southwest Salad with grilled chicken.

I have a lot of issues with some of the offerings at McDonald’s so I wanted not to like this but I just can’t give this salad a bad review.  Honestly?  It was freaking amazing.

The lettuce was super fresh and the salad was loaded with black beans and roasted corn.  The dressing came from Newman’s Own and even if you did slop a lot on there were only 100calories in the pack.  The tortilla strips added crunch and the perfect amount of heat.  I was pretty much in love!  With grilled chicken (and the dressing packet) the salad came out to only 320calories, and it was very filling.  Even though I loved it I was so full that I only could finish ¾ of it.

Now we’ve made it safely home and I’m headed off to the grocery store.  That was supposed to be a Monday errand but instead I’ll be meeting the glass repair guys to deal with the giant crack that resulted when a rock kicked up by a truck (in the left lane like a jerk!) met our windshield.  Here is a question dear readers – do you have glass coverage included in your auto insurance?  Repair is going to be a hassle, but at least it’s free.  I highly recommend you check out your policy.  Fun fact – Adam was actually going to remove glass coverage from our policy on Friday, but while he was on the phone I told him not to.  Thank goodness!

Which do you prefer, the icing or the cake?  I’m an icing girl!  To the chagrin of classroom mothers, when I was a kid I would like the tops off of cupcakes and throw the rest away!